Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic
Overview Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery! These are the 9 Circles of Hell made famous by Dante Alighieri in his famed masterpiece, Dante's Inferno, his first story of The Divine Comedy. Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic will take you on a harrowing trip through Hell as Dante braves the forces of evil, slaying demons and monsters of extraordinary imagination, all to save his love Beatrice, from the clutches of Hell's Master - Lucifer. The companion piece to the hit Electronic Arts game, Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic, is inventively told through eyes of visionary animation directors from around the world. 6 directors, 6 terrifying visions of Hell, 1 heart-stopping epic adventure. Prologue & The Arrival Prologue The film starts with Dante's return from a Holy Crusade which has had him away from his home for several years. Speaking in inner monologue, he claims that the forests that he had been traveling in were gloomy and he would nearly prefer death over having to travel them. He admits he can detect someone following him, but each time he tries to approach, his pursuer vanishes without a trace. Upon arriving at home, he finds his servants slain, his father dead and his beloved fiancee Beatrice lying on the ground, dying of a stab wound to the stomach. As she dies, she is relieved that Dante had kept his promise to her that he would return. As she dies, she turns into a spirit and begins to ascend into heaven. However Satan, as a shadow comes and takes her away, rejecting her entry into heaven and instead taking her through the gates into Hell. Dante in hot pursuit, he comes to the gates and is briefly stalled. Virgil, a poet comes to him as a spirit to guide him into hell. After Dante invokes his faith he is able to tear open the gates and enter hell. The Arrival Upon Entry, Dante and Virgil board Charon, a demonic ferry that takes souls across into the First Circle of Hell. Charon does not take kindly to a mortal traveler on him, and sicks demons to attack Dante. Dante fights them off, and kills Charon, crashing him into the coasts off the first circle, he trades up his sword for an extendable scythe. Limbo Limbo Virgil and Dante enter the first cicle, Limbo which is home to mostly virtuous pagans and unbaptized babies. It is here that Dante learns that Beatrice was with child while he was away, and miscarried in the womb. Without time for sorrow, he is attacked by demonic children who quickly overwhelm him. As he and Virgil escape into a large building, they come across a hall of philosophers and thinkers such as Plato and Socrates. Upon leaving they come across Saladin who Dante had encountered during his crusade. They move on, and eventually encounter King Minos whose task is to judge all condemned souls to their specific circle of hell. When he denies Dante access, they battle. Dante is able to kill Minos by dropping him onto his own spinning wheel of judgment. As Minos recedes, Dante and Virgil make their way down to the second circle. Meanwhile, Satan tortures Beatrice killing her and letting her slowly recover, tricking her endlessly with the hope of rescue and taunting her that Dante had never kept his promises after he left. Lust & Gluttony & Greed & Anger Lust: Falling onto the storm-ravaged shores of the second circle, Dante notices bodies flying through the wind, intertwined. Virgil explains that the island is the second circle of Lust and those in the wind are caught in a never-ending storm of passion and may never know rest. Following Beatrice's cries from the distance, Dante ends up in a room of demonic harlots who transform into hideous demons. As they try to kill him, he finally realizes he did break his promise to Beatrice, during the Crusade a woman offers sex to save her husband from being beaten to death. Having been under the illusion he was 'absolved' of all sin, he accepted. Upon hearing this, Beatrice begins to lose her faith, but stands strong that this is a lie and will never accept as Satan proposes marriage to her. Gluttony: "I find this circle most unpleasant" -''Virgil'' "You're just a shade, you should try wearing skin." -''Dante'' Coming to a grotto of men and women who had lived their lives without knowing fulfillment so they suffer lacking it in death. Many starving individuals are caught and devoured by Cerberus and Virgil tells Dante that the only way to the next circle is from within him. Dante allows himself to be eaten and he ends up inside of the hound of hell. Encountering a man he knew in life and feeling pity for his suffering, Dante uses his faith to release the man from the torture he had to endure. Satan comes, infuriated that Dante is saving souls otherwise condemned for eternity and Dante learns of his plans to marry Beatrice. Before Lucifer departs, however he notes that Dante's father is also a soul condemned to hell. In order to escape Cerberus' belly, Dante attacks and destroys the beast's heart. Causing the demon to spit him up and spew him out in a river of blood that flows down into the next circle. Greed: Dante and Virgil's next circle is the ring of hell to men and women who wasted their lives in pursuit of material possessions. The condemned souls are tortured by being sheared in money presses, boiled in melted gold and buried in heavy gold coins. As Satan had said, Dante's father appears, having been promised gold and a thousand years free of torture if he would murder his own son. The pair battle fiercely, but Dante gains the upper hand, kicking his father into a vat of boiling gold. Anger: The fifth circle of hell is Anger as Virgil and Dante surmise when they can sense the very rage in the air. They proceed to the River Styx in which violence is still running rampant amongst the spirits fighting in the shallow waters. They climb aboard a demon who traverses the river while men and women who know of Dante taunt him from below. Heresy & Violence City of Dis Dante has the demon Phlegyas charge the city when he sees Satan within, announcing his intent to marry Beatrice. When he strikes Phlegyas down, Dante chases after Satan. It is revealed that further, more mundane orders from the king during the Crusades began to test Dante's patience, making him prone to anger and doubts on the value of the lives to their prisoners. The sixth circle of hell is for the heretics, those who have pressed their religions upon others. As they travel through halls of men and women who forever burn in fire and are forever tortured by various implements. Dante comes across one who will not step aside and as he threatens that Lucifer will wed Beatrice, Dante kills him and he and Virgil move on. In order to escape the circle of Heresy Virgil helps Dante face the minotaur causing an easy defeat by allowing the beast's anger to get the better of him. Violence Souls boiling in a vast river of blood from their own victims; violence they had inflicted upon others, Dante and Virgil enter the seventh circle; Violence. Having been helped across the river by a demon. They encounter a vast forest in which Dante hears a familiar cry. The forest being a place that souls are condemned for committing acts of violence upon themselves. Suicide victims. Dante encounters his mother, growing from the sapling of a tree, forever in pain for killing herself and not finding the strength to stand up against her husband, Dante's father she eventually hanged herself. Dante had been told, however she had died due to a fever. Having been overwhelmed with sorrow, Dante uses his cross to free her soul. They move onto a graveyard where his one time comrades and one of his close friends Francesco rise from the graves. The graveyard is where souls are condemned for committing acts of violence in the name of God. Feeling angry and vengeful of Dante, Francesco attacks him, matching Dante's scythe with his superior sword skills. Dante finally defeats Francesco by slicing his face in half. It is in this that Dante reflects upon slaughtering several heretics including men, women and children without mercy, due to a loss in rations and having to feed many prisoners, despite the Christian lives that they themselves had spared. He again claims that it was the war and not his fault, but at this point he seems to only be fooling himself. Fraud Fraud Virgil parts ways with Dante upon entering the realm of Fraud, the eighth circle. Telling him that he only needs to cross the bridge in order to stop the marriage of Beatrice and Satan who are on the opposite end of the bridge set to be married. As Dante starts crossing, he begins to reflect upon his own fraudulent behavior. Finally realizing that he alone was responsible for the slaughter of the innocent prisoners during the crusades. This slows him down at a crucial point, and Beatrice finally gives in to her sorrow of Dante's betrayal, wedding Lucifer and fully becoming a demon, losing her wings and rights to heaven. Satan flees, but sicks Beatrice upon him. She overpowers him and forces him to look on his greatest sin, letting him peer into the ninth circle of Treachery. He reflects that he allowed her brother to take the blame for his slaughtering of prisoners, and as a reproccusion of his earlier sin of Lust, the husband of the woman he bedded in the prison sought vengeance by killing Dante's father, servants and Beatrice. Overwhelmed with grief, he presents Beatrice her cross, which he had promised to return to her upon his return from the crusade. She relents as he begs for forgiveness and forgives him, causing her to lose her new demonic form and return to her former angelic appearance. She promises that they will be together soon, but in order to leave Hell and enter Purgatory he will need to face Lucifer alone. Treachery Treachery Descending into the cold underground of traitors, after wandering in the dark he comes across a lone female spirit who directs him to the very center of the caverns, but she brings to question whether or not to be trusted as her traitorous nature might hint that she is lying, or not telling the whole truth. After wandering aimlessly, Dante comes across a cavern filled with large, frozen chains and he mows through them, only to encounter a demon in the center who appears to be Satan's corpporeal form, having been freed by the breaking of his chains he attacks Dante. Dante slays the beast and is within inches of entering Purgatory where his salvation awaits. However, Satan, now freed from his frozen form breaks free and easily overpowers Dante. Threatening to enter Purgatory and move on to Paradise itself to bring hell to heaven itself. Dante realizes that he cannot stop Lucifer on his own, and using every bit of faith in himself he begs to sacrifice his own soul to prevent Satan from moving into Purgatory, to save heaven, to save Beatrice, he repents his sins and begs for forgiveness and the power to trap Satan with him forever. Upon hearing cries for repentance in a sacred and dark place, Lucifer runs back, trying to stop Dante from making this pact, however he is stopped by a powerful force of light that freezes the lord of lies again in his chains of ice. Free to move on, Dante dives into the well that would send him to Purgatory, to be with Beatrice. "Neither completely living, or completely dead" as he puts it. However, the tapestry he rips off his chest turns into a small snake which slithers away, and Satan's laugh is heard echoing indicating he might not have been imprisoned completely. Category:Film